Do Whatever It Takes

If you are a leader, you have to do whatever it takes to lead your team to success.

That doesn’t mean breaking the rules, though. You need to know the rules inside and out in order to lead within them.

“Do whatever it takes” may mean to step down from a traditional – or stereotypical – leadership role. Sometimes you need to lead by becoming servant of all.

Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, led His disciples by taking the role of a servant and washing their feet. This was not a symbolic act. It was a task that needed to be done. The men’s feet were dirty (they wore sandals and walked everywhere, after all!).

In washing their feet, Jesus took His leadership of the disciples to another level. They had recently been arguing about who among them was the greatest. Other, than Jesus, of course. Certainly they must have know that Jesus was the greatest among them. So the argument must have been about who, other than Jesus, was the greatest.

Jesus tells them, “let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves” (Luke 22:26). But He also shows them by washing their feet.

Jesus did whatever He could to successfully lead. Within a few hours, He would lead them all to salvation by keeping the Law perfectly and performing the ultimate sacrifice – by dying on the cross. He was without sin, but took all the world’s sin on himself and paid the price for all that sin.

As a leader, I will do whatever I can to lead those entrusted to me. My wife and children and anyone else. If that means sacrificing my own personal comforts, then that’s what I will do. If that means getting a second job to provide for my family and not over-burden a congregation (because I’m a pastor), then that’s what I will do. I will not resort to actions or activities outside the law. But I will do whatever I can within the boundaries of the law to lead.